I started drawing on brochures my mom brought home from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I guess I felt that Van Gogh looked better with a hat. By the time I got to highs school and knew what illustration was, I was pretty sure I would get into it somehow. I knew I wanted to draw for a living and my that style and sensibilities just lend themselves to commercial art more than the fine art scene.

Shiny and extremely cartoony. I like the infuse everything with fun and energy.

As far as client projects go, as soon as I read a brief my mind immediately starts swirling with visual concepts, color schemes etc. Other times when I'm stumped I just have to doodle for a while until something hits me. In those instances I usually like to start off pretty loose, just letting my mind free associate and come up with crazy ideas that might never work or might be way too out there. More often than not some bits from that brainstorming lead to something useful. Generally, it's process of refinement from crazy freeform stuff to the specific ideas that are most applicable or well suited to the project at hand.

Sketchbook and mechanical pencil! I'm pretty addicted to using mechanical pencils for sketching as opposed to pens or regular wooden pencils that you have to sharpen. I guess I like the precision of the fine tip that never dulls combined with the ability to erase and shade. Sometimes I feel like I can't even think straight unless I have the right tool in my hand. Not that I don't experiment with other drawing tools, it's just what I prefer. It do most of my finished pieces in Adobe Illustrator. Sometime I scan my pencils and ink them digitally with the brush tool using my Wacom. Other times I just start drawing right in the software and only using pencils as reference. It depends how much I like the original, or how hard I think would be to recreate the details without going over the pencil art directly.

When I want to do work with a more organic and textural look I might ink it in photoshop instead or *ghasp* use a real brush and ink it by hand. However, I'm such a perfectionist about stuff I tend to like inking digitally since I can try drawing a line different ways without ruining the drawing. All praise the undo button! ⌘+Z! ⌘+Z!

I'm trying to get better at using real tools though, and trying to work it out so that my strokes don't always have to be perfect and smooth.

I usually have the opposite problem. I tend to have more ideas than I know what to do with. I have piles of sketchbooks full of sketches that I have bookmarked so I can eventually turn them into finished illustrations.

I'd really like to direct cartoons someday. I get lots of ideas that I think would work best in motion. I've always admired those 30s and 40s golden era cartoons immensely and would love to do something as exciting and dynamic and fun as that.

I feel like I want to accomplish things in multiple arenas, have my illustrations published in the NY Times, show in galleries, have a line of toys, a cartoon series, a line of apparel etc etc. I just like to see my work end up in the world and in front of peoples' eyes, well the eyes ofpeople who enjoy looking at my work. Maybe even in front of some people who would rather not see it too.

I love anything beepy and electronic, Actually, while writing this I've been listening to Manhattan Research, Inc., by Raymond Scott. He was this cutting-edge for his time electronic composer back in the 60s and 70s. Lots of jingles and ads for IBM and the like. Makes me nostalgic for all the recycled cartoons and children's entertainment from back then that I watched back in the 80s. That's right music format eh 60s make sme nostalgic for the 80s.

Generally, I like stuff that's on the unusual side that's still fun to listen to like Beck, The Eels, Self, Reggie Watts, and Devo. I like artists that experiment and have fun and push boundaries.

And also, old tiemy Jazz like Bix Beiderbeck, Fats Waller, and Louis Armstrong's Hot 5 records. You know, the kind of stuff playing in the backgrounds of black and white cartoons. Now that's fun!


Stop aspiring and start illustrating!!! No wait, that's too cliché. I say go smell putrid like raw sewage or stinky cheese, and then go draw how that makes your stomach feel.